Michael Bontemps' five year run at Jefferson included the Class 5A title in 2008. (Doug Beghtel/The Oregonian/2009)

Michael Bontemps knew exactly what he was getting into when he took over as the girls basketball coach at Grant last spring.

As an assistant at Lincoln the last two seasons, he said he was “appalled” at the state of Portland Interscholastic League girls basketball, and was intent on reversing what he saw as an alarming decline of the sport in the city.

“The product is a little poor,” said the retired Bontemps, whose highly successful five-year run as Jefferson’s coach (2004-09) included a Class 5A title in 2008. “I looked at Grant and said, ‘This will be a gold mine.’”

Grant, which lost to visiting Hillsboro 57-51 on Saturday night in the Class 6A play-in round, might not have taken the city by storm in its first season under Bontemps. But plenty of signs point to a bright future for the Generals (12-12), who finished .500 despite relying heavily on freshmen.

“He’s very enthusiastic. I really like the energy going on this year,” said 5-foot-10 freshman post Evan Harvey, who started throughout the season and averaged 10 rebounds. “I feel like next year, and every year, we’re going to get better. At one point in time, we had all freshmen on the floor. The program is going to build and build.”

Only seven players in the entire program returned from 2011-12, when the varsity finished 9-16. But with Bontemps scouring the halls for players, 17 freshmen came aboard, allowing Grant to restore the freshman team that was missing a year ago.

Bontemps also has made a concentrated effort to cultivate talent at the middle schools. He not only has worked with Grant Youth Basketball, a co-ed summer program, but he formed teams for Grades 6, 7 and 8 and entered them in the highly competitive Three Rivers League.

“What I’m trying to do in the Grant community is basically revive interest in girls basketball,” Bontemps said. “I think kids like playing basketball, they just don’t have the opportunity. Middle school is killing us. They don’t really sponsor or support athletic teams in the middle schools.”

Bontemps said that Lincoln, Wilson and Cleveland also are getting more involved in girls basketball at the middle-school level.

“With the boys, there are more opportunities to get high-powered kids to go play somewhere,” Bontemps said. “The girls want to play basketball. They’re having a good season, and they’re working with good coaches. I would say the sky is the limit because there are some really good kids.”

Unless that pipeline is created, Grant runs a bigger risk of losing top young players to private schools such as Jesuit, Central Catholic and St. Mary’s Academy. Bontemps said that Jesuit and Central Catholic each have two Grant players in their programs this season.

“I have those concerns,” Bontemps said. “But the girls all know my name. They see me open up the gym, and they all see me cheer for them. I’m building relationships.”

The talent at the middle-school level has created a buzz about the future.

“We’re all super excited about it,” said Bernadette Diepenbrock, a parent in the Laurelhurst neighborhood who co-founded Grant Youth Basketball in 2011. “They’ve all been winning a lot of games and having a lot of fun. It’s a lot of momentum going in the right direction.”

Kara Sandoval – Grant’s coach for the previous three seasons, during which the team went 34-41 -- has stayed in touch with Bontemps and gives him a ringing endorsement.

“He’s going to be an amazing person for this job,” said Sandoval, who resigned after taking a position with an insurance company. “No. 1, he has the experience, and No. 2, he has the time to put into it. Not many people want to believe that it’s a full-time job, but it is.”

The Generals, starting two freshmen and two sophomores, showed their youth Saturday night. They led 40-38 with six minutes left before Hillsboro (11-14) took control with a 7-0 run initiated by junior guard Lauren Lykins, who scored eight of her 10 points in the fourth quarter.

Senior guard Kelcie Kust scored 13 points to lead the Spartans, who advance to a first-round playoff game Wednesday. Senior guard Caylee Newsome had 15 points for the Generals, who now look toward taking a big step forward in 2013-14.

“They’ll have a little bit of my system under their belts, and we can start to refine and polish,” he said. “We’ll bring in more kids who I think are equally skilled basketball players. I think we’ll be good.”